ENGLISH AS SHE IS WRIT.
(To rue Bistros. or THE "Sniorime."1 Sis,--What is a Tombola—and teem' language really so deficient that it is necessary to make use of ,a dubious word of foreign origin in order to describe a lottery at the Albert Hall ? "Bola," but for the corrective "Tem," might suggest a feminine Bolo, highly undesirable. I remember a oentic song sung by a most talented Scotch amateur about a mysterious musical instru- ment called A Turoophone, and the chorus .ran as fellows,- "Now what wait a Tureophorte P I could not make out, I own! Was it wind P Was it string P Or what sort of a thing ?
But they called it a Turcophone."
I find myself in a similar difficulty. Do we use the word in com- pliment to one of our numerous Allies, or has it been ordered by the Ministry of Tongues ? I am sure, Sir, that you can and will
[Hoare's Italian Dictionary defines Tombola—the substantive formed from the verb tombolare, to (all headlong—as "r a kind of lottery game. Each player has fifteen numbers all under 90 and makes drawings out of a box containing all numbers from 1 to 90; the first who matches his original fifteen with the numbers ha draws is the winner."—En. Spectator.]
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